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Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider Kiva
I'm Kamen Rider Die, and this is a thread where I'm going to watch Kamen Rider Kiva for the first time and share my experiences and impressions. Thanks for checking it out!
Now, I've been doing these threads for a little while, in case you haven't checked one out before. Started with Ghost at the end of 2019, and then did Build, Kuuga, Agito, Ryuki, Faiz, Blade, Hibiki, and Kabuto. Just wrapped up Den-O's TV run a few weeks ago, so it's onto Kiva. On that topic, there's only one thing I know about Kiva (other than Vampires and Problematic, but those are both hearsay for me at this point) and it's that it's written by Toshiki Inoue, a writer I've become obsessed with. Is obsessed too strong a word? Possibly. Maybe! It's not something I'd normally admit, obsession, but we're all friends here, right? I'm pretty obsessed with his work. There's a catchphrase that I have, to show my devotion, and I'm sure you'll be hearing it a lot over the course of this thread. I'm trying to keep things relatively chill on the introductory post (I want you to feel comfortable enough before I really get weird), but maybe I'll drop it in by the end of this post. Keep your eyes open! Uh, so, yeah, Inoue! There's a lot about his writing I've enjoyed. There's a playfulness, a tendency to approach stories from odd angles, a wealth of fascinatingly complex characters, and some exciting story turns. The biggest thing, though, is that I always feel like Inoue's stories are about something. There's something he's trying to communicate through the dialect of Toku, and it always gives me more to think about than just the plot and the dialogue. There're themes to his stories that just, like, trigger something in my brain, and I can't stop talking about them. More than maybe any other Phase 1 creator, he's my guy. Except, I know he's not most people's guy. ...There was actually a whole paragraph here where I tried to lay out what folks don't like about Inoue, but it felt... tentative. Dishonest. I do like his stuff, so I can only imagine how my attempts to Both Sides his work would upset people. That is a thing I am trying to be aware of for the next couple months! I've definitely been far more willing to find something that resonates with me in Inoue's work than other people have, and trying that approach on this particular show feels like it could lead to some flared tempers and rancor. I really hope not! I'd love for this to be a thread where folks can disagree without it getting awkward. I don't need you to agree with me in order to post here, and I hope you'll be cool if someone disagrees with something you post. We all process art differently, and talking about it can be fun. Just, you know, always remember to be respectful of other opinions, okay? If you love Kiva and someone else doesn't, maybe try and listen to why that is. Alternatively, give folks space to enjoy the show even if it's one you dislike. I don't know. I want everyone to be friends, even if we're viewing this show in diametrically opposed ways. For real, I want us to all get along before and after this thread. In the meantime, in the during of this thread, I've got a couple three things I'd like to ask for your help with. (One big parenthetical note up-front: These are all just suggestions. I've always listed them as Rules or whatever, because they're things I want to stress at the outset. But, like, some folks ended up accidentally breaking a rule, and they took it bad, and I felt like my phrasing put them in a place where it meant more to them than it meant to me. In that spirit, while I'd appreciate your consideration on these few requests, it's not the end of the world if they're overlooked accidentally. I'll be fine, and I want you to be fine. Don't beat yourself up if you mistakenly do something in this thread I've asked you not to. As long as it's not on purpose, I won't get mad.) Real big one for me is trying to keep this thread SPOILER-FREE. Like I said up top, this is my first time going through Kiva. I prefer to come to these shows as fresh as I can. If, in the course of the discussion, we can keep things to only the episodes I've covered, I'd appreciate it. Nothing from future episodes, and no teases about where a storyline will go. (And no spoiler tags, 'cause the notification emails I get from this thread strip them out.) Just the current episode and anything before. That'd be swell. Eventually I'll be watching (and writing about) other shows, so if we can also avoid spoilers for Decade and Zi-O on up, I'd be super thankful. Again, no teases or nothing if you can avoid it. Try your best! Very sorry about this one, but you know all that stuff I just wrote about you not spoiling things for me? Well, ha ha, funny story: I will probably spoil things from shows I've already watched. I'm sorry! But I will. It'll only be if something in Kiva feels related to another series (I'd be shocked if I don't bring up a huge twist or two from Faiz), but just so you know: if you want to stay spoiler-free on Kuuga through Den-O and Double through Build, maybe give this one a wide berth. Sorry in advance! Everything I find valuable about these threads... it's not me getting to share my thoughts with you. It's you sharing your thoughts with me. Along those lines, I welcome any and all participation in this thread. Whatever you want to say about Kiva, good or bad, I want to hear it. Most of all, I want you to share your feelings about the show. What in an episode worked for you? Which characters are you most interested in? How do you feel about the story the show is telling? All of that stuff is super interesting to me. It's why I'm on these boards, you know? The chance to hear how these shows hit other fans, that's what I'm hoping to experience over the next couple months. If you've got something you want to discuss from these episodes, I'd be thrilled if you posted it here. Ready for Kiva? I think that's everything I wanted to cover before we get started. New episode posts will drop daily except for Tuesdays. We'll cover the two movies, the HBV, and some Net Movies as they came up chronologically on original release. (I've got Climax Deka after Episode 11, the Net Movies and Kiva Movie after Episode 27, and the HBV after Episode 30.) It should be a fun couple months, I hope. Let's make it fun, you guys. Let's have a blast with this Allegedly Vampire tokusatsu show. Let's watch Kamen Rider Kiva! (! I forgot the catchphrase! Sorry, everybody! Next thread, for sure.) https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva00.png |
KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 01 - "FATE - WAKE UP!”
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva01a.png Ha ha ha, okay. Okay! The most fun I have with these Kamen Rider shows... it's probably the beginnings. That feeling of being thrown to the narrative wolves, of being tossed into the thematic deep end, I really love it. Everything is a WTF moment, and every scene feels like it comes from a completely different show than the scene that preceded it. Kiva's a show that is both densely packed with incident (it introduces a hundred named characters across two timelines and has about four hundred fight scenes), as well as one that I never felt overwhelmed by. There's a rhythm to the progression, which is maybe appropriate for a show that feels informed by music and performance. They keep throwing new information at you (or, data, at least), but there's a flow to the episode that makes it easy to not focus too much on the details that are clearly there for later exploration. (Like Kamen Rider Grease being Wataru's dad! That feels like it's going to be important! Wild guess! Also, holy shit, Zanki is in the credits!!!) It's smoothly constructed, which is what I'm most looking for in a premiere. Like, there's a lot of fun visual ways that information is conveyed, you know? The stained glass border when we head back to 1986. Those little diegetic nods that we've returned to 2008; the cracked walkway, the plates. There's a playfulness to how scenes are shot, where it's not showy or theatrical, exactly, but... whimsical? There're decorative vampire monsters and exsanguinated transparencies, but it's still an action-y superhero show that wants you to have a good time. One of the little touches I liked is how the late-night fight against the Horse Fangire feels extra Showa, since it's in 1986. It has a nighttime horror vibe, as opposed to the daytime Heisei fight later on. Also, if there's a Kiva active in 1986, I suppose I'd have to name him as my favorite Showa Kamen Rider. I will briefly truck with Showa, as long as Inoue's writing it. Hey! Speaking of Inoue! A whole bunch of weird callbacks in this episode to his past works, amongst other Kamen Rider things. There's the obvious Spider Fangire to kick off the show, sure. But there's also the Horse Fangire as the second monster, which feels like such an obvious Faiz reference that I'd be shocked if it wasn't intentional. The Horse Fangire being named Tsugami in '86, again, real obvious Agito nod, gotta be on purpose. The weirdest reference, though, was the use of Kitaoka's office for the photoshoot scenes. Ryuki wasn't an Inoue show, but Kitaoka featured heavily in one of the stories he guest-wrote, so maybe that's why we're in such a recognizable space that literally no other Kamen Rider has used in the past five-six years. And, like, thematically, such an Inoue show. Wataru's inability to express himself is, like, an Inoue hallmark. It's present in not just the literal sense, with his adorable notebook of apologies and cries for help, but in his need to use music as an emotional outlet. That's a thing that comes up in a lot of Inoue's writing, the value of self-expression through art, and it gets a little coverage in the first installment of Kiva despite tons of other ground to cover. Wataru's ambivalence about his own humanity marks him as another questing Inoue lead. He feels a separation from the world he's protecting, and at this point it's tough to see if he's longing for a connection or wishing for isolation. (I mean, almost definitely the former, but I like that there's some ambiguity here.) He's a sweetly sad boy, and that little scene where Kivat offers some role-play toy psychoanalysis in the bathtub (from a floating violin-shaped soap caddy!) is a nice window into a character who spends the whole episode being weird around three-dimensional women. And, shit, I don't know where these women are going to go in the narrative, but I love how they all kicked-off. Opening the series with Yuri throwing down with the Spider Fangire, hitting the midpoint with Megumi laughing at the gullibility of the Horse Fangire, and having Shizuka around to gently nudge Wataru away from being descended upon by angry villagers... just great, great characters. I loved each of the performances for their unique energies. Yuri is closed off, tentative, but intensely focused. Megumi is flippant, energetic, and never one to hold her tongue. Shizuka is perplexed, indignant, and loyal. With Wataru being a cypher for most of this episode (but an effective and charismatic one, somehow!), it leaves way more space for the various women of Kiva to make an impact, and they totally did for me. This whole episode did it for me. I loved the inexplicable debut aspects, the insanity of some of the world-building (Kiva's Rider Kick causes a lunar eclipse that makes a Dinosaur Cathedral eat the soul of a decorative vampire monster???), all of that premiere shit that you take for granted on subsequent viewings. But I also loved the cleanliness of the delivery, the way plots and details rhyme across decades (Yuri and Megumi's God Has Erred declaration, Megumi and Wataru's fish obsessions, Yuri and Wataru's weirdness around tiny animals), how this blenderized inaugural episode was fun and charming and... and weird, in all of the most engaging ways. I'm not quite at the point where I know what story Inoue's telling yet (The Perils Of A Life Unlived would be an early guess), but I like the way he's started to tell it. https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva01b.png |
I think if I went back and rewatched Kiva, I'd probably find a lot more to like in Wataru. Of all the characters people like to criticise in this season, he stands out as one of the ones I liked -- his disposition is pretty similar to Ryotarou which could feel a bit repetitive, but heck; it's the second time in the entire franchise we've gotten a main character like this, so I'm not exactly unhappy about it. He's just very charming and earnest in a shy, restrained way that endears him to me. He's a good lad.
The other thing I liked about this episode is that the music's pretty nice |
Hey question, what happened to Inoue? Like it feels like he disappeared from the series after some early hesei phase 2 films. I know he came back for the Zi-o Ryuki special, but I’m unsure where else he’s been. Looks like he did some anime stuff, but also like he fell off the earth from 2010 to 2015 aside from a few films. Anyone know anything about that? Did Inoue have a falling out with the series?
Edit: also I should try to keep up, what subs are you using die? |
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I love that you like the show so far. I am a big fan of it, despite it's many flaws. The designs are fantastic, by and large, obviously Kiva is the best looking of all Kamen Riders, the music is great, I liked that the stories took place in two times, and the crazy stuff like the Wake Up finisher causing an eclipse is awesome.
I hope you enjoy the rest of the show. |
Man, this is unexpected. I haven’t even had time to pre-write my recurring thread for this season. But I’ll try to cope, since this is something I’ve been looking forward to you doing (Kiva is my number 1 Rider show).
So, without further ado, welcome to the edition of “Fact Fangire-le” for Kamen Rider Kiva episode 1: Fate: Wake Up. Spider Fangire True name: The Capriccio of the Paradise with Light (光ある楽園の綺想曲 Hikari Aru Rakuen no Kisōkyoku) Human identity: Ryo Itoya. Class: Insect Rank: Pawn Actor : Sohto (human form), Katsumi Shiono (grunts in Fangire form). Horse Fangire True name: The Sincerity and Melancholy that the Twin Impostors Dream About (双子のペテン師が夢見る、誠実と憂鬱 Futago no Petenshi ga Yume Miru, Seijitsu to Yūutsu) Human identity: Kaoru Tsugami Class: Beast Rank: Pawn Actor: Nobuo Kyo (You know him as the bad guy from the Amazons movie, I know him as the guy who, until recently, was my signature). And I’m happy you’re enjoying it so far. |
You want me to praise Kamen Rider Kiva? No, I can't see myself doing that! :lol
On a serious note, it felt to me like it was the last of a certain type of 2000s Kamen Rider show that I do miss whereas I wasn't a big fan of the direction the franchise ended up going in around that time, and Den-O was at least probably better than Decade, even if I did really hate Ryotaro even when compared to Wataru! When OOO came along though I felt like it was just what I needed at that time and some since then have been enjoyable enough so it's swings and roundabouts, but I did love so many songs from Kiva too, especially the movie theme and it is strange that no-one seems able to do a really good tribute or comeback Kiva thing. |
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If I could offer my speculation: I think he was just satisfied and left Rider on his own terms. Like for one thing the dude wrote a lot of stuff for Heisei phase 1; practically half of it all, as well as most the summer movies and The First/The Next. The only Phase 1 series he hadn't worked on at all was Den-O. In short I wouldn't blame the guy for feeling more than a little exhausted and wanting to do other stuff. But aside from that, and perhaps relevant to this series... from what I've heard he cites 555 and Kiva as his peak, his magnum opuses. These two seasons are basically the epitome of everything he wanted to do with Kamen Rider; these are the stories he wanted to do. So after both of them were fully out there with his having basically full creative control (he wrote every single episode and the summer movie of both seasons, aside from a single 2-parter in Kiva), I can easily see the guy feeling happy with it and moving on. Frankly everything he does after Decade aside from the 1/Ghost movie feels very tired and exhausted to me, like he's just going through the motions on commission rather than throwing out his crazy creative prowess like he did back in the day. Think the dude was just personally done with Kamen Rider after this season |
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Whoa, this crept up on me. Honestly didn't expect this until next week. Glad I went ahead and downloaded the episodes in advance a few days ago. Haven't started the rewatch yet, so I'll likely have more to say tonight.
That said, let's start with my overall thoughts going back into this: I'm legitimately looking forward to it. I got into Kamen Rider back in '09, while Decade was still airing, and I followed the same path you've been on for over a year now of going back through the whole Heisei era before watching Decade (Kinda. Kuuga hadn't been fansubbed yet, so I only watched a couple episodes of that before moving on to Agito). Back then, I remember that Kiva was THE, all-caps, SHIT. Everybody loved the show and even some of my friends who I didn't know watched these shows were raving about it. I didn't get around to it personally for months, but at the time I wasn't a fan. In fact, until Ghost this was the show that I always ranked as my least favorite. I had a lot of problems with it and I suspect I'll be revisiting them over the next couple months. That said, I know I've also forgotten a lot of the show's specifics and I'm sure that there's going to be a lot of material that hits me differently, twelve years later. The big thing I'm going into this with is one thing I said back on TFW2005's old Rider Kick thread, which was basically that I disliked Kiva more, but I'd still rather watch it again than Faiz. Then last year I finally rewatched Faiz and fell back in love with it. I'm really, really curious to see what happens when I go back and give Kiva a second chance. Quote:
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Neat to hear that Kiva was well-regarded(-ish?) back in the day, since it's another show I didn't really hear too much about when I came in. I mean, some negative talk, but nothing too egregious. It was just something I thought of as An Unpopular Show, based mostly on how long it took to get a Seihou or whatever. Interesting that, when it was recent, it was more appreciated. Definitely a show I'm not finding too disagreeable so far! |
Kiva is a show I have a bit of a weird connection to. I guess it's maybe relevant to give that personal context of me getting into Rider during OOO and – in contrast to what Switchblade just said about a couple years before that – I recall "Inoue is a washed up hack" being a fairly prominent opinion even in 2011, and while that didn't stop me from finding out fairly quickly that I'm a big fan of Faiz, it did mean there wasn't a lot pushing me toward watching Kiva. So for a very good while, I didn't watch it. It ended up being the second to last Heisei show I caught up on (Hibiki ended up going last, if you recall), and that was much later, while Gaim was airing. I'll hopefully have plenty to kick in about my opinions on the show proper as you go along, but before I get there, suffice it to say, Kiva was not a series that was calling out to me for whatever reason.
Except it's also been a constant presence for me ever since I became a Rider fan. You see, Kiva is every bit as much about music as Hibiki was. Arguably more, even? This is glaringly apparent from the episode titles alone, which use musical notation instead of hyphens or whatever, as though the first word always being a musical reference wasn't enough. You'd kinda hope at that point they were taking the music in the show more seriously than usual, and I think they very much were. Kiva has a soundtrack that is full of absolute bangers, and I was listening to those theme songs ALL the time well before I sat down to watch the show they were produced for. In a way, I already felt very familiar with the show not even having yet seen it. This stuff is legitimately formative for me, and that being the case, I knew that when you got around to making this thread, I wanted to pay tribute to that weird connection I have with Kiva by spotlighting all that high quality music in some way. Which is an excessively elaborate way to say I'm just going to try and make a point to talk about each song a bit as they come up. I mean, I know basically nothing about music, so even if I wanted to do something fancy here, I couldn't. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6CG-s5WfVc Naturally, Break the Chain is first up on that list, and hoo boy is this a good theme song. I mean, man, right from the title alone, it's just killing it. That's like the whole show in three words right there, which makes sense when it's pulled right from the tagline. And that extremely direct relation to what the series is about extends to the lyrics by Shouko Fujibayashi, a lyricist for a huge swath of Rider tunes who I find to be very good about that sort of thing. Break the Chain has this fun thing going on where it's pretty specifically being sung at the protagonist as much as the audience, rather than simply being sung about Wataru and the show, and I find this massively increases the punchiness of the song. The actual instrumentation is a mix of smooth harmonies and much more aggressive sounds, so it matches perfectly. It's a song that kinda gets up in your face and makes you like it, you know? Again, there's only so much I can do to describe the "why" here, but yeah, I really love this one. Just a total jam that always gets me pumped. (I also might as well mention here that since the premiere was directed by Ryuuta Tasaki, I believe this is yet another case of the tight visuals of the opening being thanks to him.) ...Plus! While it was pretty specifically the vocal tracks that were filling my ears long before I watched the show, the BGM is every bit as fantastic. It seems the guy who composed it, Tsuneyoshi Saitou, has a background in classical music, and he makes it work so well here that it pains me this is the only toku show he's ever done. The only reason I don't call this guy a favorite composer for me is because I know it would hurt to get too attached. :lol Still though, that one toku soundtrack is maybe all you need when you nail it that hard on the first go. There's naturally a heavy emphasis on strings throughout, which is very thematically appropriate and all, but I mean, why bother even attempting to explain why it's good when I can just put this right below and tell you it's merely Kiva's normal, regular battle theme you hear all the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=limt3OdWSGk Anyway, always good to see another one of these from you, Die! I look forward to the Somwhere In Spring To Eventually Summer of Inoue! |
Regarding the 1980s section of Kiva, the 1980s was for Japan a special time called the Bubble Era, where everyone had beaucoup money and economic abundance was at an all-time high. It is a fascinating decade cause they had so much money they bought the freakin' Empire State Building. THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING.
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God, I've always loved that battle theme and could never find it anywhere. It's got this real unique vibe to it I could never pin down
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I remember checking out the first 15 episodes of Kiva, years ago now. I remember enjoying it enough, I just kinda stopped after a while for the same reason I did with lots of things back in the day - I'm bad at watching stuff! I'll just drop into say that Break the Chain is the best Phase 1 theme song, and Kiva's design is very, very good. The literal chains might be a touch too much, both aesthetically and for the suit actor, but they sure look cool. Plus, you know, thematic, Waturu's sealing himself away from humanity inside this bat-themed killing suit, it's all a metaphor.
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My biggest regret from the Hibiki thread was putting in song lyrics. Wish I'd saved it for a show like this one. See, I went into Hibiki expecting a show About Music. The main Rider's a drummer, the other Riders all play musical instruments, there's that opening scene, Asumu dreams of joining his school's band... it's going to be a show About Music! I should lean into that! And then, after just a few episodes, it started to become clear that Hibiki was going to be a show that was About Camping more than it was ever going to be About Music. Music was an affectation, a part of the experience that became less and less relevant as the show went on. There was an episode where three Oni needed to combine their finishes to destroy a monster, and I'm like Oh They're Playing As A Band, This Is Going To Be About Them Achieving Harmony, and then the show just layers their three finishers on top of each other in the most discordant way possible. Even when the music metaphor was teed up for them, they ignored it. It was a show About Dads, not a show About Music. So having this show be the one that's About Music (and probably About Dads! Hilariously!)... definitely feel like I should've saved the music stuff for this one. Not a huge surprise that this one's going to be more about music, honestly. That's an Inoue thing, expression through art. But, yeah. Goddamn it. Wish I hadn't assumed that Hibiki was going to be About Music. Quote:
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Okay, having properly gone through the first episode again, some musings.
I really wish Yuri was the main character. I have some thoughts on the split timeline element that I'll probably get to later, but even without it factored in, I think Yuri is by far the most interesting character in this episode. Maybe it's the part of me that watched Buffy back in high school/college, but I would be absolutely down for a series about a badass woman with a Castlevania whip fighting vampire monsters in modern-ish Japan. It's a pity that she's not the primary focus of the whole series. I say that in part because Yuri is great, but also because Wataru does not make a good first impression on me. Ryotaro was kind of a weenie, especially at first. Wataru feels like Inoue saw that and gave it a "Hold my beer." I am not drawn in by the panicky dude in the mask, gloves, and coat crawling around for discarded fish bones and communicating via signs. Now, in fairness there is a reason for this. Wataru is meant to be a hikikomori - an extreme social recluse. This was an issue that was gaining a lot of attention in the 2000s. Basically, it's a population of young Japanese adults who are essentially hermits, having minimal contact with other people and rarely leaving their house. It's an interesting social phenomena but a really weird trait to have for your super-hero protagonist. It's a decent premiere, I think, although starting with Wataru already having and knowing how to use his Kiva abilities does mean that we're thrown into the deep end right from the start with a lot of stuff that doesn't immediately make sense. Some of this will be explained later. The rest of it... well, it's Kiva and Kiva doesn't always feel the need to explain things. |
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I never watched Kiva at the original time of airing because I was folding my arms and looking sternly at Toei in regards to what happened with Hibiki, but when I did watch it late last year, I remember thinking that the early episodes, despite neither Wataru nor his father especially being my cup of tea, were really quite enjoyable. I think Koike Rina's blustering, matronly teenager character was great, and there is a character introduced later who I really grew attached to, so whilst I am the author of an entire post about why I don't like the show as a whole, it would be insincere for me to claim that it does not have its moments, and I really hope you enjoy it and find your own things to latch onto as you work your way through it! Have fun!! |
Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be rewatching along with the thread like I did for Faiz and Hibiki, since it's been a few years since I watched Kiva and I'm excited to watch it again. For now, I'd like to mention something cool about the insert themes. They're performed by a band called Tetra Fang that was started to promote the show and Wataru's actor, Seto Koji, is the lead singer! Which means he is a very talented person who can act and sing, similar to Miyauchi Hiroshi who sung the theme song to his own show, also titled Kamen Rider V3.
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I don't know how it will be taxing for me here, as regarding the series writer here can feel like if a degenerate company gets free pass for their questionable choices due to clinging to something good the company has made...
Kiva's also one of a series I don't know much other than the Riders (as I've played Climax Heroes), so I may say less things here. Quote:
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https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...642/2020_2.png Also fucking indirect disrespect to Inoue here, his father's a writer for Showa Kamen Rider, and his father is iirc the reason of his feud with Kobayashi. Quote:
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I know recently we were all discussing the various merits of spin-offs and side-stories, but as much as I didn't enjoy Kiva as a complete narrative, some of these characters and themes that it brings into play would probably be my first choices for further exploration, even all these years later. Heck, if the Reiwa era is all about Rider being more visibly in other mediums, not just toku, I'd totally be fine with a cartoon or comic going back and looking at what this show has to offer. |
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Kiva is... the last series I would trust to write respectfully about women's issues, sorry. I got the exact opposite from it when I watched it
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KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 02 - “SUITE - A FATHER AND SON’S VIOLIN”
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva02a.png This may be the quintessential Okay Inoue episode for me; where there are a couple big-picture things I’m fascinated by, surrounded by a story that I’m already forgetting the details of. The big idea in here, the one that’s central to this monster plot, is the idea of creativity being a resource. The Fangires seem to be sustaining themselves on art, targeting musicians and models and secretaries (time management is an art!), and the Octopus Fangire seems to draw strength from her performances. Creativity, the ability to make art, it comes across as something both innate and ephemeral, and I think that’s a real interesting take. Anyone who’s ever tried to create something will tell you how unpredictable the process of creation is. Making art is, frequently, something that only makes sense in retrospect. You can dissect and judge your work in the aftermath, but the act of it is this mix of autonomic function and straight-up sorcery. It’s hard work, and yet it’s also sort of inevitable. Treating artistry as something to be coveted and consumed… real clever motivation for a monster. Inoue hit on it once before, with the epic Black Knife story from Kabuto, and it’s clearly something he wants to talk about. It’s a little hard to see what he’s getting at about it in this episode, though. The Octopus Fangire doesn’t really get a ton of development, acting instead as a linking element between both eras of the narrative. It’s intriguing to see her connection to her violin, the pride she takes in it, but it’s nothing I can really nail down. I liked it, though. I like the monster feeling something deeper than the heroes, digging into a primal response that the Fangires are weaponizing somehow. Like, Artistry As A Commodity is such a neat concept to explore… I’m just glad it’s being brought up? There’re no real answers to it as a problem here. It’s not making a statement. But it’s raising the question in a compelling way, and I really appreciated that. The other big idea, and one that seems equally likely to form a spine for this series, is trying to use art to connect with people. Specifically, Wataru is trying to find a part of himself by recreating the art his father made, and… like, I get why this would be Inoue’s last Kamen Rider series. The son of a tokusatsu writer, doing a series about fathers and sons, connected by art? Come on. What else could that dude have to talk about after this show? For me, it’s intoxicating. I mentioned this during Kiriya’s story on Hibiki, but my dad died when I was two years old. Stories about men trying to understand the fathers they never knew, I am powerless against those narratives. That scene of Wataru picking up the violin his father played, playing the song his father played, and finding some thread stretching back over the decades, feeling that presence… man. Man! I am a million percent onboard for a show that wants to talk about obligation and connection and self-expression and self-respect and Would My Dad Be Proud Of Me and everything that goes along with trying to fill that formative void. Oh man, yes. Complicating matters slightly for Wataru’s search for identity is that his dad is Grease, and Grease is WEIRD. Even in different phases of Heisei, this guy is down bad. Otoya is… he is a lot. There’s a slight comedic skeeziness to his horny obliviousness, but it’s mostly just aggravating. We’re completely on Yuri’s side in this episode, even as it’s apparent that there’s a greater depth to Otoya. He’s just tacky, and crass. That turtleneck, that chain, they say it all. He fancies himself a classy individual, a showy man of taste, but he’s just an oily creep. He’s someone Yuri is frustrated by, and he’s a distraction from her serious mission. But then there’s the scene where he confronts the Octopus Fangire, and it’s pretty fantastic. I mean, the fencing display Otoya puts on is very dynamic; all sparks and moonlight. But it’s the line he comes into the scene with that I’m most enamored of. He asks the Octopus Fangire, “What do you think music is?” It’s confrontational, and it’s almost wounded. The idea of her taking something beautiful and using it to harm, he’s offended by it. That type of character, who is protecting… not humanity as a species, but humanity as an attribute, I really dig that. Otoya respects art, respects what it means to people, and he can’t suffer the Octopus Fangire to live. Those questions about art and creativity and connection, those made this episode a memorable one for me. The actual plot… a little less so? Like, the Kiva fight was okay. Having it take place in the hallways of a racetrack is one of those things you kinda just have to not care about if you’re going to care about Kamen Rider. It’s there to facilitate the use of the Kivehicle (not checking the wiki), which is appropriately boss, but it means that Kiva’s fighting a monster in a beige hallway amongst cardboard boxes for a few minutes, and that ain’t anything to put on a Best Of list. It’s fine, but easy to zone out during. (I definitely did!) We didn’t spend a ton of time in 2008 this episode, since this one was way more about introducing Otoya and expanding on Yuri/Megumi’s organizational ties (and Yuri is Megumi’s mom?!), but I really liked the plot about Wataru trying to find the correct wood to repair the violin. That whole scene of Megumi berating Wataru, Shizuka trying to defend Wataru, Megumi berating Shizuka, Shizuka starting to cry, and Megumi realizing she has been sarcastically insulting two weird kids and that is not a cool thing to do as an adult… so good. So good! It’s that Inoue character-building I love, where everyone’s being just a little bit awful and then feeling bad about it, and how that creates bonds between people. Wataru ending the scene by being unable to ask for a table correctly because he can't say words out loud under stress is the icing on a very delicious cake. Not a bunch with our modern-day cast, but they were incredibly charming. Socially-awkward skinny pretty boy Kamen Riders and tough female friends always, please and thank you. Fun episode, but maybe more fun in the way where it’s giving me stuff to think about in the aftermath. The last third of it was kind of a snooze, but everything it’s bringing up about Dads We Never Met and The Power Of Art was terrific. I’m drawn to those stories, and I’m excited to see what Inoue’s going to have to say about them. Plus, Zanki lives in the belly of a Dinosaur Cathedral and plays chess, so that’s also something to look forward to. https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva02b.png |
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Anyway, this definitely seems like an appropriate place to share this track, simply titled Otoya. You'll be hearing bits of this one a lot! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWAHcNPxc7c Quote:
With Hibiki, it's that whole idea of Hitting Your Beat, right? This idea of everyone having their own drum to march to; a life they feel confident in living. Finding a groove that fits and sticking with it. The emphasis on things like the rigorous routine of training the Oni do, or the focus on the beauty of nature, all that – it all feeds into back into that one concept in a way I could probably describe better if I was more passionate about Hibiki. It's like, order, or something. I guess it's less a show about music, and more one about sound. With Kiva, it is admittedly much more specifically about music. The idea of all these individual notes in their unique places coming together to form a greater tapestry, made all the more beautiful through that connection. You're only two episodes in, but I probably don't need to explain how things like the dual timeline shtick fit that concept – it all feeds back into that one concept in a way I could probably describe better if I was more passionate about Kiva. It's like, harmony, and stuff. I guess... I guess it's definitely a show that's more About Music than Hibiki, huh? Still though, the point I was trying to make here is that I disagree hard that you blew the lyrics gimmick on Hibiki. I think it fit the offbeat nature of that show in particular very well. I mean, Kiva is mostly about wordless classical pieces, whereas the title character in Hibiki had a habit of singing that one little tune with lyrics tailored to his current situation. Tell me which one of those honestly sounds like a better time to bust out that trick. Quote:
I'm definitely not the first person to make this joke, am I? |
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I was gonna write a song for you Gonna sing it out loud Gonna sing it at such decibels that All you'll hear is sound and All you'll feel is sound and All you'll be is sound That idea, of sound transcending action, until sound becomes meaning... that was something that made the first episode of Hibiki really magical to me. But then Ibuki never really practices his trumpet, and Zanki never practices his guitar, and there's an entire story where Todoroki has fun rocking out and the entire cast looks at him like he's got two heads... it just never really seemed like it was a story about what music means to people, you know? Even the various scenes of Hibiki training up his drum skills, that's all metaphors for different things that are related to Asumu's adolescence. It could've been any rigorous training that Hibiki was doing, to my mind (running a marathon, competitive ice dancing, full-contact Connect Four), and it would've had as much relevance to the themes of the show. I just... I always had the feeling that Hibiki had a ton of really compelling metaphorical tools that it sort of let languish? Or didn't really explore as fully as it could have? There were missed opportunities on that front that bother me more than they maybe should. I don't know. Thank you for the clarification, though! I don't think we're disagreeing as much as either one of us thought. |
Boo get off the stage Fish
on more serious note I really don't like this season and I wonder if you can notice what I've "affectionately" call Kiva Syndrome. |
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If it's not that, I'd love to get more details. |
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